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Who Made That Gelato Look So Good?

By Hilary Greenbaum May 16, 2011 1:01 pmMay 16, 2011 1:01 pm

via Louise Fili

I was delighted to discover recently that the legendary graphic designer Louise Fili created the current identity and packaging for L’Arte del Gelato, a small gelateria in New York that I’ve visited countless times. Although there can be many downsides to spending the hottest months in the city (such as this, that, and this other thing), eating gelato while lazily walking the streets is not one of them.

via Louise Fili

According to their Web site, Francesco Realmuto and Salvatore Potestio started the company because they “believed that New Yorkers would share our passion for true Italian gelato if they had access to it.” After years of study in Veneto and Sicilia, they produced a gelato that, according to Fili, “was as good as any that I have had in Italy, but their identity was not as distinctive.” The shop owners approached her to re-invent their original mark (shown on the right).

No stranger to restaurant or food packaging, Fili has produced work for other New York eateries, like Artisanal, Mermaid Inn and Marseille. For this project, though, she was inspired by “a collection of 1930s pasticceria papers that I stumbled upon years ago.” The typography, colors and decorative elements that compose the mark all serve to evoke “a romanticized view of Italy that comes through in so much of its vintage signs and advertisements.”

Fili also notes, “We always have gelato on hand at my studio, which is a guaranteed way to keep both my staff and clients happy.”

Bruce Grierson wrote this week’s cover story about Ellen Langer, a Harvard psychologist who has conducted experiments that involve manipulating environments to turn back subjects’ perceptions of their own age.Read more…